


Keeping You

by Emptylester (timelordangel)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2012 phan brought up, 2016 Phan, Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Oneshot, USA Tour, mentions 2009 relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7498896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelordangel/pseuds/Emptylester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just a coin laundry in Texas, but it's so much more. Dan and Phil talk about what happened between them so many years ago, for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping You

It was just a coin laundry in Texas, for Christ’s sake.   
It was a small building attached to an all-night grocery. Two walls of shaky appliances faced one other with a row of faded green benches in between and a TV at least two decades old hanging feebly above one wall. A lone old woman sat nodding off in the far corner, her laundry thudding away in front of her, a magazine trying to escape her hands. 

Dan and Phil sat on one of the benches closest to the entrance. Dan rotated and kneaded the fifty-cent dryer sheet in his hand as his eyes focused on the stark, bright lights of the car park outside. Leftover rain drops from the storm half an hour before continued their paths down the smudged glass of the front door as the washers groaned on. There was no sign of the tour bus, which had left to get gas twenty minutes prior. 

“What a strange place to be.” Dan mused softly, mostly to himself. 

“Texas?” Phil responded without looking up from his phone.

“No. This laundry.” Dan corrected, “I mean, doesn’t it seem like in some places reality is a little… morphed?”

“What are you on about?” Phil lowered his phone and turned to face Dan, his tired eyes a dull blue behind smudged glasses. 

“It’s just surreal. Like anything could happen right this minute and it wouldn’t seem out of place.” 

“Come to think of it, there are some weird vibes in here.” Phil glanced around, his eyes lingering for a moment on the fuzzy Tom and Jerry cartoon displayed on the small TV, “Like a little place frozen in time.” 

“Do you ever think about the future?” Dan said suddenly, his voice dropping in volume. 

“Not in too much detail.” 

“Do you ever think about the past?” Dan asked after a moment. 

A silence followed, one that was neither awkward nor empty, simply a moment of thought filled with the hum of machines. Finally, Phil spoke.

“I try not to that often, but I’m only human.” 

“Do you think you’ll want to move out in the next few years?” The question sounded more like a confession, falling from Dan’s mouth like he was admitting a deep secret.

“Probably not that soon but-“

“Phil, do you ever feel so so happy at the time but it’s ruined by the thought that you know it will end eventually? Like your happiness is a time bomb, just waiting to blow you the fuck up?” Dan interrupted Phil breathlessly. 

Phil just looked at Dan with a tired, sad expression. He ran his tongue over his lips before finally speaking, “Dan, why don’t we talk about something else?” 

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Dan said, “You said it yourself, this place is frozen. Everything that happens here stays here, so say whatever you want. Why do you never want to talk about the hard stuff, Phil?”

“Because it makes me sad! Scared! Whatever else, okay?” Phil’s volume made the lady in the corner shift in her seat. 

“It doesn’t help at all to talk about it?” 

“What would we even say about it?” Phil whispered. 

“The truth. We could talk about what happened. What’s happening. All these things we don’t talk about, ever.” Dan pleaded with his eyes. 

The washers in front of them stuttered to a stop and drew the boys’ attention. Outside the rain had started up again and in the eerie silence of the laundry mat all they could hear was the pitter-patter of water on the old tin roof. 

Without a word, they transferred their clothes to the dryers and fiddled with the American coins for a moment until the machines started thudding away once more. Suddenly the boys were left alone in the silence abandoned from their earlier conversation.

“Okay.” Phil said softly as they resumed sitting on the faded benches. “What is said here stays here. Let’s talk.” 

“You first.” Dan said. His heart pounded in his ears, he had been longing for this conversation for so long. 

“I’ve not had feelings for anyone else in the past seven years.” Phil said.

Dan was struck silent, the beating of his heart drowning Phil’s words and cutting off his vocal chords. Dan couldn’t even look at Phil; he just stared straight ahead. 

“Neither have I,” Dan echoed, “but you still feel anything for me? Or did you ever?”

“That’s a stupid question.” Phil scoffed, “Of course.”  
“Of course what?” Dan asked, still not looking at Phil.

“You know I did.” Phil rubbed at his neck. 

“I want to hear you say it.” Dan finally turned to face Phil, his ears red and his voice firm over the roar of the storm outside. 

“I was in love with you.” Phil said, his voice barely a whisper. 

Dan took in the words like a breath of air, breathing them in and committing them to memory.

“I was in love with you, too.” Dan said after just a moment.

“I know.” Phil almost smiled. 

The lady in the corner stood up for the first time to transfer her laundry and the boys paused their conversation, letting the gentle thud, thud, thud, fill the air. 

“Why did things fall apart?” Dan said after a while, staring at his knees.

“Who said they fell apart?” Phil asked.

“I had to force myself to fall out of love with you after we stopped doing those things together, after you stopped taking me out to dinner and removed the heart from my contact name.” Dan laughed humourlessly. 

“Did it work? Did you fall out of love with me?” Phil asked as he messed with a string on his trousers. 

“Of course not.” Dan shook his head, grimacing. 

“I knew you were someone I wanted to have in my life for the rest of my life,” Phil said softly, “and I was afraid to be in love with you because I didn’t know if I would like boys forever, and I didn’t know if I could handle losing you if we broke up, I didn’t know anything. It felt like the easiest way to keep you forever was to ask you to move in with me and then act like we had never been anything more than best friends.” 

There was a moment where Dan just took in Phil’s words; six years of realization dawned on him. His eyes softened as he looked over at Phil and saw someone who loved him so much more than the instant gratification of sex or romantic love. Phil loved him so much he just wanted Dan in the most permanent way possible. He didn’t know if anyone had ever loved him this much.

“I guess it worked, I’m still here.” Dan gave Phil a forgiving smile. 

“If we had stayed together romantically, anything could have happened. You could be living with someone else right now, featuring someone else in your videos.” Phil furrowed his eyebrows, “I was in love with you but this was the way I got to keep you.”

“You’re stronger than me.” Dan said, tears threatening at the edges of his eyes.

“I don’t think so, just less impulsive. I kept falling back in love with you but every time I managed to stop myself. You have no idea how often I wanted to kiss you.”

“What about now?” Dan’s eyes flickered down to Phil’s lips and then regained the eye contact they’d had for five minutes.

“Can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind.” Phil swallowed. 

“Listen, I’m not going anywhere, okay? Would you want to try again?” Dan smiled and put his hand out for Phil. “If it doesn’t work we can just go right back to just being friends, I love being friends with you. This is entirely your choice.”

Phil smiled and took Dan’s hand. “I think we’ve proven that nothing can keep us apart.” 

“Remember though, what happens here stays here.” Dan grinned. 

“What?” Phil cocked his head, “So-“

“All that means is I never want to mention this embarrassing conversation again.” Dan laughed, watching relief fill Phil’s eyes. 

It was just a coin laundry in Texas, for Christ’s sake, but it just happened to be frozen in time. As two boys made out on a faded green bench, laundry tumbled in the background and rain poured outside, drowning out the sounds of a conversation that lay frozen in time, unspoken of in the remaining years of the mens’ lives. Those lives would be shared as one until their kids were grown and they would retire somewhere warm and safe. 

Many years later on a cruise ship deck at two am when Dan is 83 and Phil is 87 they find themselves talking once more. 

“You know,” Dan takes a deep breath, “being on this deck in the middle of the night with no other passengers in the middle of the ocean,”

“What?” Phil motions to his ear, squinting. 

“It seems like a place that is frozen in time!” Dan shouts feebly.

“No!” Phil’s eyes widen, “No!” He turns and hobbles off, “No sir, not doing that again.” He mumbles as he shuffles off, laughing as Dan calls for him in the distance. 

Some times things are best not brought up again.


End file.
